The end of "farm in the burbs"

Well PJ is doing really well at homeschooling. He is getting into a real rythym with it. He does worsheets/books and written work in the morning and more freelearning (computer games, art etc) in the afternoon. He has calmed down lots and really seems to enjoy the work.

We have finally made a decision to move to the country on a property - hoping to set up our own little farm - nothing for money more just so feed us. we have looked at a few properties around the place. So I have decided to bring this sorry little blog to an end and start a new blog You can find it here. http://dellsdell.blogspot.com/

Ready for the New Term

Well the holidays are nearly over, the printer has been going all day. I have been busy getting K3's unit studies ready. Did I tell you I decided on the Solar system for Science and Egypt for History.

I think I have decided on a mixture of methods for homeschooling. Mornings are for more formal school at home - worksheets and such, and the afternoons are for more free learning - reading, unit studies, gardening, cooking etc.

I found a great website that helped with my science and history units. I am planning to try notebooking/lapbooking for these subjects. The science will still have some worksheets from http://www.learningpage.com/free_pages/home.html but k3 will also be making notebooks. I thought this would add a bit more fun to it and it can also incorperate some Art and Technology which helps with the ciriculum requirements. The new site is "Homeschool Launch", it is a place where other homeschoolers can upload and share (free) files they have made. Hee is the link to my page and then you can move to seach the site from there.
http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/profile/7893

Well it is getting late, I will catch you all soon later

The Home Schooling Journey

The past 12-18 months have been a bit busy and as you can see I haven't gotten to my blog in a long time. Needless to say my garden looks worse than the blog - very neglected.

I have decided to be better with my blog and I am now including homeschooling in it. Homeschooling was not something I considered a real option for our family. Schools are fairly good where we live. However about 2 weeks ago I was thrown for a loop when one of my special boys was having trouble at school and out of the blue became agressive. Even though this is very unlike him it is very common with Aspergers children. (I have both my boys with this). The School asked us to remove him as they can no longer cater for his special needs. As my mum always taught me if you don't have anything nice to say then say nothing. So no comment on this further.

However this did cause a bit of a predicament, what do we do with k3 (kid number 3). If he wasn't coping with a class of 20 with the special ed department there when needed, how was he possibly going to work in a state school with class sizes up around the 30 mark and no support for him. With a lot of help from his old spec ed teacher we have found a school that will take him, but there is a waiting list. So in the mean time we are looking at home schooling him.

This has been a bit of a shock to my system but I can see the upside to it for both him and me. so I delved sraight into finding out how to go about this. I rang the Dept of Ed here in South Australia to find out how to go about this to be told that I will have to apply for and exemption to attend school. I also found out that he has to be enrolled at school at all times. Ahhh! but he isn't at school at the moment what do I do. I had to go back to his previous principal and ask to keep him on the books but listed as non attending (which you can do here for 4 school weeks apparently) That gives me some time to put the application together.

Well this has been a bit long so I will leave it here for now. More on the application later

Beggining of harvest

Ahh! you have to love spring!

Well I thought I better write something - it's been a while. Between being on holidays again, dealing with the kids and taking every chance I can get in the garden I have been remiss in my Blogging - Sorry. I have been planting more in the garden - check my spring list. You just have to love this time of year - you can see all your hard work come to life.


Had a small problem with my lettuce and tomato seedlings - I had them in the little green house boxes I use for growing seeds they were doing really well and I took the lid off to acclimatise them to the big wide world and my delightful munchkins pulled out all the labels - so when I planted out my tomatoes and lettuce there is no organisation to them it will be all pot luck!


Also they were doing really well and then all of a sudden nothing - they just stopped growing some even died. I planted the sad little seedlings anyway, thought I would give it a go before I go and buy seedlings. Most of the tomatoes seem to have come good. One lot has gone like the clappers and has out grown the one lot of seedlings I did buy.


My sad little seedling

Turned into this in under two weeks!



My kids have also been nagging me to put corn in. I wasn't going to this year because they seem to take up a fair bit of room for not much produce but well lots of Pleeeeeeeese mums and I did have 1/2 a bed I hadn't used yet so I succumbed and bought some seedlings yesterday.


The rock melon seeds didn't sprout anything - I'm wondering if the seed was too old (last years packet) but my water melon has come up with a couple of little seeds. I also planted some potatoes that had started sprouting in my pantry and surprise, surprise they have come up as plants!
My baby watermelon


My first ever potato plant

Today I planted some more tomato seeds in my little mini green house and I also planted the next batch of lettuce (we are already nearly through the first bed full and the seedlings for the second lot are in this will be the third) we eat so much lettuce its ridiculous.

I also bought my passion fruit seedlings to try in the hanging baskets (nothing came of the seeds). I'll probably do that on the weekend.

I was also just wandering around the garden this morning and my beans had some beans already and check out my baby cucumbers, it makes you hungry just looking at them!



Well that's it for now, I'll keep you posted!

Holidays A good thing?

I've just come back from a few weeks holidays at the beach with the family - and as relaxed as I'm feeling, I looked at my garden when I got back and am now wondering if it was worth it?

My lettuces and herbs have gone nuts which is wonderful, but so have the weeds. Someone needs to explain to me why with so little water and watering restrictions still in place that I have a very sad and sorry backyard grass that I am struggling to keep nice for the kids, but where I don't want any lawn, I turn my back for two seconds I have the same couch grass growing like there is no tomorrow?

Time to do some research on killing off grass organically without harming the veggies - will update you when I know more.

On a side note my watering pins ( see previous post) worked wonderfully whilst I was away, my lovely father-in-law who was watering my garden for me while I was away only had to fill them up 2 times a week and that was enough for the plants - they are all starting to bud up - even some of the trees that I thought I might loose after the cold snap we had after I planted them.

Well I'm pretty sure the holiday was a good thing but my back may disagree tomorrow after I do some weeding (ha ha).

Watering System

With water restrictions here in Adelaide the only watering we are allowed to do is by hand with a watering can – as you can see from my plot layout this is a very time consuming job and a bit of work on my back and wrists. Luckily as at the 1st of the October we can water either on a Saturday or Sunday (depending on your house number) for up to 3 hours at specified times, with drip lines. So with great excitement this morning I decided to put my dripper system from my old garden back into my new vegie patch.

Well it took me hours to separate all the old clamps, joiners, ag pipe and dripper hose. I relayed it out and joined it up and it only does about half of the vegie beds. Off to the shop to get more to do the rest. A friend came around and I put her to work as well. I’ve done about quarter of it, I’m still thinking about the best way to handle all my fruit trees in pots, but I did find this nifty little device at my local bunnings

You fill the stem with soil or sand and then stake it into the soil and up end a bottle (2 liter seems to be the biggest that will fit) full of water into it. It slowly leaks into the soil, watering the plants. I think the theory behind them is for use for when your on holidays but unless you have some one coming into fill them up every couple of days I dno’t think they would work because they drain in about 1 hour or less. However it is quicker to fill them up and plonk them in if you do have some one watering your garden while your away. Also It’s a lot eaiser on my wrists than the watering can until I come up with how to attach them to the dripper system.
I will upload some pictures of the layout of the dripper system when I finish put it all together but before I bury it under the mulch layer. Stay Tuned!